I licked my lips, pushed back the curls that had escaped from my braid. Breathe, Ivy. “Zach, you don’t love me.”
“You don’t think I’ve tried to deny it?” He jumped to his feet, the muscles in his neck and arms tight, strained. “To tell myself it’s just Lust? For all the girls for me to fall in love with… It had to be the one who completely denies Love’s entire existence. The most Royal of them all.”
He crossed to the window, lifted one arm and rested it and his forehead against the glass. He laughed bitterly. “Isn’t the irony hilarious? The girl I love begging me to kiss her every day, and I have to refuse. And I have to. Not just for my own beliefs and this golden theory, but for my own sanity. Because a kiss would mean nothing to you, while it meant everything to me.”
I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
I didn’t believe in Love, but Zach did, and he believed he had fallen in…
At last, I managed to rasp, “But…but you barely knew me.”
He shook his head, his hair brushing against the glass. “I knew you enough. I met you, and you were beautiful with your freckles and talk about strawberries. Then you were demanding that we should be partners and, even when I told you no, you showed up on the battlefield. You were fierce and strong and brave, and I admired you.” He turned away from the window, walked back to the bed and sat down. “Then after your mother slapped you, and I walked you back to your room… I don’t know. Maybe it was then.”
“Why then?”
“I heard you crying,” he said softly, eyes focused on the floor. “You cried like your heart was being ripped in two. Every Royal I’d met always cut off all emotion, but you let yourself feel something. And then you showed up at the Council meeting, eyes a little red, like nothing happened. But something had happened, and I worried about you. I haven’t stopped since.”
His words had me trembling. Sacred Sisters, what is this prince doing to me? I believe every foolish word.
He held out his hand and slowly rotated it, studying the Mark of Myriana. “You asked me why I didn’t just go search for the dragon myself with my Sense. The answer is…I couldn’t let you go alone. Or with anyone else. You wouldn’t be safe with someone like Amias. Someone who wanted you only as a weapon. To make themselves stronger by using you.” He looked up, then repeated the same words from the enchantment. “They wouldn’t make you feel wanted for just being you.”
Oh, don’t say that.
With his marked hand, he took mine and pulled me closer, to where I stood between his legs. Zach was tall enough to only have to tilt his face upward to be inches from my own. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you would’ve been better off with a different partner.”
I couldn’t. His hands moved into my hair as our breathing synchronized.
A knock on the door sprang us apart. I swiveled around, and with hands still trembling, rushed to the door. Millennia stood in the doorway, holding two steaming mugs, and Bromley was behind her with a basket of food.
Millennia cast a look from Zach to myself, then strode in, handing me a mug. I accepted it, trying not to spill any tea.
Bromley smiled at me, but it quickly faded when he noticed my hands shaking the mug. He glanced at Zach, and I subtly shook my head.
Millennia took a long sip from her tea then squinted at me over the rim. “So, princess, what’s in those mountains?”
“Um—what?” My mind was still too full of Zach’s confession to comprehend what she was asking.
“Don’t think that I didn’t notice what you said yesterday—that the fate of the kingdoms rested on you two.” Millennia flicked her wrist at both of us. “You’re after whatever is brewing in the Wu-Hyll Mountains, aren’t you?”
Zach still sat on the bed, staring at the floor. I remained silent, my brain moving at a snail’s pace.
Irritated, she snapped her fingers. “Hello?”
I set the mug of tea on the dresser, rubbed my forehead, and sighed, trying to refocus on our mission. What Millennia had said last night had a ring of truth to it. If she had a Master Mage who recognized the dark signs like the magical thunderstorms and the sparrow harpies, it wouldn’t be hard to decipher that something was growing in the Wu-Hyll Mountains. But given the Romantica mages’ lack of access to our archives, it made sense why they didn’t know what was forming. The question was, did I trust her enough to tell her? She had saved our lives with the serpents and helped us find the amulet—she may be a Romantica, but like Zach, she wasn’t evil. And if she truly wanted us dead there would’ve been plenty of opportunities. So I told her.
“Great wisps on the Seas of Glyll,” she said, “a Sable Dragon. I’d expected something terrible, but not…” She took a steeling breath. “This is it then. She really means to raze the world with this dragon, doesn’t she?”
Her words struck a chord inside me, and for a moment, I couldn’t respond. This whole time I’d known that the Sable Dragon would destroy the Legion if let loose, but without the Legion, the rest of the world would surely follow. All she would have to do is stand back and let her dragon wreak havoc, and with no more humans in the way, her monsters—her children—would inherit the earth.
Millennia turned toward the door. “Well, we better get moving.”
“What?” Brom, Zach, and I said in unison.
She blinked. “I’m coming with you.”
I gaped at her. “After what I just told you…you want to join us?”
“Absolutely. You need my help. Especially since the Royal’s Kiss is no use to either of you.”
I dug my fingernails into my palms. Maybe I believed Zach thought he loved me, and maybe I couldn’t deny that something was different about the Golden Effect and the Royal’s magic, but to completely throw out the one power we had to defeat the dragon—no, that was too dangerous. Despite the Romantica’s theory, we were still going to use a Kiss. It was the only way to kill it for certain.
“Slaying a Sable Dragon isn’t like breaking a cursed amulet. There is no other way this time. And it’s really none of your business what goes on between me and my partner.”
Millennia raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And how has your luck been with the Royal’s Kiss so far?” She pointed a slim finger at Zach. “From what I can tell, he’s refused to participate.”
Zach was now staring out the window, still quiet.
“You want to help,” I repeated slowly.
“Before, I thought you were mindless followers of the Legion, but I was wrong.” Her tone was soft, similar to when she had been braiding my hair last night. “I meant what I said, Ivy.”
Zach wasn’t any closer to Kissing me. If anything, he was farther away. Especially now that I knew all his reasons for saying no.
His belief that a kiss shouldn’t be used as a weapon.
The Romantica’s theory that the Royal’s Kiss didn’t truly work.
And the fact that he loved me and I would never return feelings that could not exist.
So, even though I knew the Royal’s Kiss—along with the spell I’d been studying the whole trip—was the only chance at destroying the egg, I had to face the facts: Zach was nowhere close to giving in, and there’d be even more vicious monsters in the mountains. At least during the mountain leg of the journey, it would be helpful to have a mage at our side.
With a sinking feeling, I realized not only did I still have to convince Zach to Kiss me, but I also had to convince him that what he felt for me was merely Lust, not Love. That seemed even more impossible than killing the dragon.
“Yes, we could use your help,” I told Millennia. “I’ll meet you downstairs after I change.”
Satisfied, Millennia left, but Brom lingered, probably sensing something was wrong. I wondered if I wore the same expression I did whenever my mother left me broken.
“Go.” I shoved his arm gently, giving him a reassuring smile. “I’m coming.”
Brom turned to leave, glancing over his shoulder with narrowed eyes in a way that told me he blamed Zach for my state. Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.